A Cure for Life

Lockhart (Dane DeHaan) is a corrupted young executive. The board is pushing for a merger and they send Lockhart to retrieve CEO Pembroke from a mysterious wellness center in remote Swiss Alps. Both the board and Lockhart agree to pin his indiscretion on Pembroke. Upon arriving, Lockhart senses some strangeness from Dr. Volmer (Jason Isaacs) and the various people. He gets into a car accident with a deer and wakes up with a cast on his leg being cared for in the wellness center. He is taken with strange beauty Hannah.

I find the brooding moodiness intriguing. I love the body horror aspects. It could have stayed a simple horror which would be much better. It goes off into some slightly questionable directions. It should be much harder for Lockhart to leave the hospital. The tension would be higher if he's forced to stay. Trying to escape is a great way to raise the intensity. The movie plays with the reliability of Lockhart's perception but that could be sharper. DeHaan as a lead continues to struggle with a tinge of personal demon. Overall, I love the mood and the style but the story could be improved.

(I saw a preview screening of this.)

Director Gore Verbinski is best known for the Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy, and also Rango, The Ring, and The Mexican, so "quietly understated" is not really his thing, If the Pirates movies are kind of a throwback to old Hollywood swashbucklers, this is a more lurid version of old Gothic suspense thrillers like "Rebecca" or "The Island of Doctor Moreau."

The main character is Lockhart (Dane DeHaan), who is the exact sort of morally bankrupt young financial hotshot you've seen in a bunch of other movies. His bosses are so cartoonishly evil that they may as well be counting wads of cash as they tell him he's being sent off to Europe to fetch a wayward executive whose signature is needed to allow a merger to go forth so as to allow them to rake in more millions. (Oddly, a similar plot undergirds the otherwise-completely different Will Smith vehicle "Collateral Beauty.")

Most of the rest of the movie takes place in a Swiss Alps sanitarium where practically everything looks like it's from some time in the first half of the last century. I half expected John Harvey Kellogg to show up, but instead we get Volmer (Jason Isaacs), the place's director. As with the patients and the staff, there's something not quite right about the overly affable man, and the impatient Lockhart has plenty of time to figure it out after an accident delays his trip back to New York.

Exactly what's going on, and why no one ever seems to leave the place, takes quite a while (almost 2.5 hours) to unspool, but Verbinski successfully distracts the viewer with visually arresting images of hallways, of peacefully exercising old people, of slithery fish, of living and maybe dead bodies in all shapes and sizes (but mostly white and old), and so on. A teen girl (aptly named Mia Goth), the only young person besides Lockhart, may hold some clues. Rather than a lush island, the sanitarium is high on a mountain, but the effect is the same, as if the viewer has been transported to a world apart.

Does this all sound good? Then you'll probably like this very dark fable. The deep mystery of why the place is so strange is possibly layered with too much complication. I think everything fits together pretty well, but I'm not positive. I am positive that this is definitely going to be a lot different than anything else in the multiplex whenever you might choose to see it.

This film feels like a Black Mirror episode - but one that treads water for almost two and a half hours without ever reaching its main idea. 250% longer, but only a fraction of the satisfaction.

I really wanted to immerse myself in its atmosphere and ideas, the idea of a David Lynch/Cronenberg style Shining/Shutter Island film seems great. But the film really tests your patience. The main character is icy and unlikable, the other characters are similarly distant. Stuff happens, a lot of stuff, some of it great looking, but with nothing to tie it together or the any character depth to engage with, it ends up feeling like you're being taken through a film students visual exhibition that doesn't end soon enough.

It really doesn't live up to the amazing film that the trailer suggests, a pattern that seems to be more and more common with films these days. Similar to Passengers, I wonder if moments were shot just to make the trailer more powerful in selling the film.

Gore Verbinski, the man who gave us the first "Ring" movie, the "Pirates of the Caribbean" franchise, "Rango," and "The Lone Ranger" is now back with this Hitchcockian Gothic psychological thriller designed to keep you guessing till the very end. Even though its final 20 minutes somewhat go off the rails a bit, overall A CURE FOR WELLNESS is stunning, bold and hypnotic.

Dane DeHaan plays an ambitious young executive, Lockhart, sent to retrieve his company's missing CEO who's decided to stay at a remote wellness center in the Swiss Alps. What is supposed to be an easy assignment turns into a journey of slowly but surely uncovering the center's dark past, uncovering the real reasons as to why the guests keep staying there, longing for the cure, as Lockhart himself starts to question his own sanity.

You will fall in love with the cinematography by DP Bojan Bazelli. Even if you're not a fan of mystery or suspense, Bazelli's cinematography for "A Cure For Wellness' will leave you floored, the word breathtaking doesn't even begin to fairly describe it. There are shots through the tunnel, around the castle, and even during some of the film's most disturbing moments, they draw you in, gorgeous in every possible way. And the fact that they actually filmed a big chunk on location at Castle Hohenzollern in Germany does help because the place becomes a supporting role.

Ever since "Chronicle," Dane DeHaan has been an actor that's caught my attention because I do believe that this rising star has what it takes to be great, A CURE FOR WELLNESS allows him to showcase a tease of that potential. His performance reminds me of Leo DiCaprio's in "Shutter Island" and Jack Nicholson's in "The Shining" where to a certain extent, you're not certain if they'd eventually cross that line or remain on this side of the fence. A CURE FOR WELLNESS is trippy, it's intriguing, it's filled with all kinds of odd imagery, it's definitely not for the faint of heart. It's a sensory experience type of a film, the kind that also evokes all sorts of questions about society and what it means to live well and the ambition for purity. But again, as I said earlier, the final 20 minutes do go off the rails a bit, by that time the film feels like it runs longer than it should and furthermore it gets ruined by its desire to leave us on a happy note. A CURE FOR WELLNESS will find its audience, but it's an acquired taste.

I'll never understand why some movies end up rated the way they are. This is one of those movies. It's not groundbreaking. It's not mind blowing. But it is a great example of what a quality movie is. The acting is good to excellent. The cinematography and visuals are exceptional. The story is a little odd, but so what? Since when does a movie plot have to be within the realm of "Normal"? It is what it is, and this one actually all comes together relatively well. The pacing, although a long movie, is actually pretty good. You'd think 2-1/2 hours is too long. After watching this movie, I'd have to disagree considering the fact that everything that happened contributes to the story and slowly builds suspense. I can see why some people don't like that, but it's unfair to rate a movie poorly simply because you don't like the style. It's not a frantic seat-of-your-pants thriller horror movie. Why do people insist on rating movies how they think they ought to be, or how they thought it was going to be, and not simply how it is?

I sit here and can't help but think I might be completely crazy. I just finished watching "Transformers: The Last Knight" before this movie. That movie was incredibly bad. I mean, literally the only thing going for it was special effects and, a few of dozens of attempts at humor that were actually funny. How on Earth is the aggregate user score only 1 point lower than this movie? That blows my mind. Or how about "Get Out"? I liked that one too, but I cannot fathom how it's better than this movie in any way! They are both "it's not what it seems" type thrillers. Is it because of the racial element or something? I'm sorry folks, but "A Cure for Wellness" is a far better movie in every way.

I implore you to watch this one if you enjoy "it's not what it seems" type movies. I can't remember enjoying one like this since "shutter Island" with Leonardo DiCaprio. Don't believe the 1/10 reviews on this. It's a shame people have to be so shallow and misuse the rating system. If people rate this movie anything less than 6/10, it's because they have no idea how to judge elements of a film. The only legitimate gripes about this one are the length and the slightly bizarre plot. But those are elements that worked for it IMO.

After using IMDb for years to get my reviews, I just now decided to make an account. Because I can't stand seeing a very good movie like this rated so low. It's a 8.5/10 movie and nothing about it is bad at all. You may not like it, but you can at least try to be objective about it and give it a rating it deserves... I mean, come on people. Captain America is 8/10 and this is 6/10!? Give me a break...